05/15/2013

Hurricane forecasts trickling in

Several hurricane season outlooks have surfaced over the past couple of months. Most of these early-season predictions are calling for a more-active than"normal" Atlantic tropical season. It should be noted that NOAA has not issued a public forecast yet, but it will be out quite soon, and I'm guessing it will probably line up pretty much with the other forecasts.

A common characteristic among all of these pre-season outlooks is that they focus on numbers of storms, with best-guesses of how many might become major storms. The reality, that can only be determined after-the-fact, is that there is much room for error, and that sheer numbers don't necessarily portend probabilities of certain land impacts.

Case in point is last season. It was the third most active on record, with 19 named storms. It was also predicted to be a below-normal activity season. Add to that, Sandy, which proved to be one of the most costly and devastating landfalling storms on record. The takeaway is simply this; early-season forecasts are interesting and can give us a general idea of the season ahead, but we should always be prepared for the worst, since one storm that hits land can far overshadow any impact from 10 or 15 storms that stay over water. The numbers in the forecasts can sometimes deceive.